Cat Out of Water
by PatronSaintOfBEGA
Summary: For Dixon Oriole! Ray is kind, and Ray is generous, and Ray doesn't know what's going on.


**Cat Out of Water**

**By Request for the wonderful Dixon Oriole:**

**"I would love to read about Mystel interacting with the White Tigers. They forged such a strange bond, as far as I'm concerned, and I never get tired of those couple of episodes. Then again, I don't get tired of any of the episodes!  
I have no guidelines for you, no requests as far as POV or setting, just...'Tigers and Egyptians."**

**Your wish is feather-duster's command.**

**---cat out of water---**

_Did you ever have to make up your mind?_

_Pick up on one, and leave the other behind_

_It's not often easy, and not often kind_

_Did you ever have to make up your mind?_

_- Lovin' Spoonful_

**---cat out of water---**

Ray had no idea what'd happened.

He was aware that he'd started it, hands down. Sometime during the later aftermath of the BEGA fiasco, when he and the Tigers had been due to leave shortly, he'd been hanging out in Tyson's kitchen and happened to run into Mystel. And in the course of a conversation, he'd foolishly issued an invitation to the aforementioned teen that he was quite welcome to stay at the Tigers' village for a while. At least, until he could track down his parents. Ray considered himself open-minded and generous, which was perhaps what drove him to make the offer. Ray actually _was_ open-minded and generous, and recalled smiling honestly at the small Egyptian bouncing up and down in excitement at the offer. His generosity had shaken, however momentarily, by the sensation that on some obscure, subconscious level, he was yelling at himself, but he'd dismissed it, and boarded the plane two days later murmuring placatory words to a less-than-amused Lee.

Lee continued to be less-than-amused for quite some time.

"That damn kid," he'd snorted as Ray was packing to leave again for Tokyo and the new BBA, "Why the hell'd you bring him here? He just gets in the way. Nobody likes him." Ray had frowned, puzzled, at this.

"...Kevin does."

"Pssht, Kevin."

"And Gary, and your mom, and my mom - "

"He's like a damn _virus_," Lee exploded suddenly, swiping at Ray's luggage with one hand and slamming the lid. "People - people _catch_ him, like a disease!" Ray was forced to stop and laugh at the heated announcement.

"Gold fever, you reckon?"

"Don't mess around, Ray! I was talking 'Riah back to her senses only this morning! She - she thought he was _funny_, or something, for Buddha's sake! You brought the little pest here, now _you_ gotta remove it." Ray had patted his friend's hand consolingly, and heaved the bag onto one shoulder.

"No offence to either of us, buddy, but if 'Riah wants him to stay, we don't exactly have a choice there. Just lighten up, okay? He's alright. Now come say goodbye with everyone else."

That'd been six months after leaving Japan, and somehow, it took nearly three and a half years before Tyson, Kai, Mr D or any number of other minions could spare him from trotting around the world on recruitment, to go home. He got regular letters, of course, and was amused to see Lee's criticism of Mystel fade from bitter and icy, to somewhat frosty, to in fact a rather watery complaint in the end. The blonde appeared to have convinced Lee - and the rest of the community - of _something _or other by throwing himself into village life with unnatural enthusiasm. This, along with being vouched for by Ray, was good enough to effectively tack him onto the Tigers' family tree. Ray was amused by that, and busy enough not to really notice the letters from Lee decrease in frequency, and those from Mariah almost totally cease. He wasn't exactly amused, however, when she finally _did_ send him something.

It was an invitation to the village's equivalent of a wedding, and he stared at it for almost thirty seconds before reading a word. Then he slowly pulled out his travel bag from under the bed, shoved the card into the bottom of it, and begun packing.

Ray tried very hard to puzzle out how he felt. He thought he probably should be angry, but there wasn't anyone other than himself to be logically angry at. He wasn't sure whether he had lost something, because the card made it clear he hadn't had anything in the first place. The one thing he could say with conviction was that he was fundamentally confused. Something in the workings, the nebulous plan he'd never even known he had until then, had gone awry. The whole village greeted him with a smile and he felt like a spare wheel, an idiot. He sat politely and noticed that everyone, even his own mother, looked very happy. Ray felt cuckolded, though there had never really been anything more than assumptions. He'd orchestrated a few of those himself. He'd relied on them, too.

The pairing ceremony had been small, but at the reception a week later in Tokyo, most of the teams he recognised were present. Even Mystel's parents had shown up out of the woodwork; a pair of tanned, bright-eyed individuals in hiking boots and backpacks. They seemed entirely unsurprised by the noisy trinket of an individual who they'd somehow brought into the world, or his new wife's bright pink hair, or being hugged in greeting by half a clan of Neko-jins. They were passing through on their way to climb a mountain somewhere, apparently. Ray observed them cautiously, from a distance, and felt blatantly uninteresting. He considered over a flute of champagne that he wasn't much to write home about. He was a good guy, a nice guy, friendly and balanced and a teller of interesting stories. It seemed to him very much like he only knew those stories because he'd worked with interesting people, though. He didn't ever break into song in Spanish, or say how he felt about Boston in the fall, or teach Lee and Kevin how to flip-dive into the lake, or introduce Gary to that strange British recipe that was now his favourite snack. And he'd certainly never come back from a week in Brazil with a bright blue diamond on a ring, and got down on one knee in front of Mariah to ask her about it.

He did dance with her at the reception, and still feeling near-terminally boring, had been unable to prevent a slight, distracted sigh. She smiled at him in a sort of skewed way, and tugged him along to join in the family photographs when the song ended. Somehow, he was gradually shuffled around to stand beside Mystel as the first flash went off, and felt the Egyptian smiling up at him guiltily for a moment.

"...Sorry, Ray."

"S'alright," he murmured back, staring straight at the camera with a smile.

"Y'know - she'd have gone with you. If you'd been around. You know that, right?"

Ray said nothing.

Two years after that, he was in Greece when a letter from Mariah arrived for him, with a card inside. He opened it; ran his thumb over the blurry scan photo of a healthy, growing foetus, and briefly wished he had a wall regular enough to post it on.

**NOTES:**

**feather-duster feels sad for Ray now. Poor Ray.**

**Yes, they are a few years older in this. Let's say around twenty. feather-duster's big bro married young, and as our little Egyptian has an odd resemblance to her younger brother, well, he can get away with it too.**

**The blue diamond, feather-duster saw an advert for in the newspaper today. A regular white one seems a little boring for Mystel and 'Riah, ne? He would've gotten a green one, but that would clash with her hair.**

**About the title; well, Ray's not a fish out of water, but probably feels a bit like one. Also, cats are infamous for disliking teh wet stuff. Mystel attacks with water (Poseidon equals bitbeast equals mythological God of the seas), and harrasses/hangs out with the neko-jins. _Que es esto_, writing staff? Hmm?**

**Dixon, I hope you liked it! Sorry it was kind of shmaltzy, I'm still not sure about the direction I took it in...maybe with all the usual dirty humour/horrible people writings I wanted a weird romancey thing to be a surprise. Oh well! Now I need a new request. Hee hee.**

**Review and you get to come to the Baby Shower, folks. Oh, and Ray's taking offers, too! XD**

**(P.S. :**

**w w w . youtube . com /watch?v(equals)eWJRAfQZfAg **

**AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA! Take out the spaces and put in that equals sign for inspiration in a can, friends!)**


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